Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Minor League Scorebook

Opening news: tonight, we start with a piece from Bryan Smith, "The Unsexy Awards", about the non-Player-of-the-Year awards, generally the league awards for the minors, and in this case, A ball. While no Angel or Dodger prospect walked away with any of these, Smith has this to say about Cal League MVP Brandon Wood:

Last but certainly not least, I wanted to close today with
Brandon Wood. As I said earlier, the Baseball America Player of the
Year award attempts to combine 2005 performance with perceived future
value. Because of this, Delmon Young was able to steal the 2005 award
away from Brandon Wood. In actuality, it was Wood's 100+ extra-base hit
season that was worthy of award, not Young, whose chances were hurt by
a midseason promotion.

In 2003, I feverishly disagreed with Baseball America when they gave
Joe Mauer the Player of the Year award. Jeremy Reed had flirted with
.400 for much of the season, and Reed had clearly been the minors' best
player that year. To me, he was worthy of the award in 2003. Last year,
both my system and BA's system agreed upon Jeff Francis. This season we
will again end in disagreement, as I believe Brandon Wood was the minor
league baseball player of the year.

Wood's future is a little murkier than Delmon's, to be sure, but his
2005 season was damn near flawless. Sure, you can attack his
environment and non-perfect patience numbers, but Wood more than made
up for that. Add his premium position into the mix, and out comes one
of the top ten prospects in baseball. Wood has created a SS debate --
Joel Guzman, Stephen Drew, Wood -- that should go on all offseason.
Finally, he has likely created debate within his own organization,
where the Angels have to put up with Omar Cabrera for three more
seasons.

Few players in minor league baseball history had a season like
Brandon Wood in 2005. We can't provide perspective to his numbers by
using historical context, but simply put, Wood was the minors most
lethal hitter in 15 years. That, my friends, is a lot more deserving
than just a Cal League MVP trophy.

And with that, on the heels of one of the most thoroughly depressing games I've ever had to sit through (well, Game 5 of the 2002 World Series), not to mention what is probably -- without looking -- the worst game Edwin Jackson has ever turned in in a Dodgers uniform, the minor league postseason games.